Paterson
Patrol area: Paterson
Average number of full-time officers: 377
FROM 2012 TO 2016
of force
1,000 arrests
This department uses force at
higher rate than 401 police departments
OFFICERS INVOLVED
department used force
over five years
officer who used force
over five years
incidents per officer
over five years
This database includes five years of force reports, but some officers may not have been employed by a department the entire time. So it's possible they could account for a large amount of the force during their time but not appear among the top officers. Only officers who filled out a use-of-force form will be included in this database.
Officers’ names that were illegible or blank on the form do not appear above. But those forms are included in the full listing of incidents at the bottom of this page.
Police departments don’t report part-time or seasonal police officers to the state, so in some towns the total number of officers who used force may be higher than the average number of full-time officers.
Flagging officers for review
Many major U.S. cities track use-of-force trends as part of systems that flag potentially problematic officers for review. But in New Jersey, that's not required, which experts said is unusual. Here's how many officers in this department would have been flagged at least once for review from 2012 to 2016 under other systems across the country:
Under Los Angeles' system, 35 officers in this department would have been flagged for review.
Under New York City's system, 233 officers in this department would have been flagged for review.
Under Chicago's system, 252 officers in this department would have been flagged for review.
In New York City, officers are flagged for review if they use higher levels of force — including a baton, Taser or firearm, but not pepper spray — or if anyone was injured or hospitalized. We calculated this number by identifying every officer who met one or more of the criteria.
In Los Angeles, officers are compared with one another based on 14 variables, including use of force. If an officer ranks significantly higher than peers for any of the variables — technically, 3 standards of deviation from the norm — supervisors are automatically notified. We calculated this number conservatively by using only use of force as a variable over the course of a calendar year.
In Chicago, officers are flagged for review if force results in an injury or hospitalization, or if the officer uses any level of force above punches or kicks. We calculated this number by identifying every officer who met one or more of the criteria.
RACE & ETHNICITY
a black person in Paterson is ...
than a white person.
a black person in Paterson is ...
than a white person.
NJ Advance Media used an adjusted population, eliminating people under the age of 10 and over 65, to calculate the percentage above. The adjusted population uses an age range most likely to face police force, according to the use-of-force data in which 95 percent of force subjects fall in that range.
Using FBI arrest data, which is self-reported by local police, we calculated the likelihood of police using force on a black person and white person and then found the difference between the two numbers.
Race and ethnicity breakdown
The demographic data comes from the use-of-force forms collected by NJ Advance Media, arrest records reported to the FBI and the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (2012-2016). If the use-of-force total is low, the small sample size can skew the percentages very high or very low, even though they are technically accurate.
NJ Advance Media used an adjusted population, eliminating people under the age of 10 and over 65, to calculate the percentage above. The adjusted population uses an age range most likely to face police force. About 95 percent of force subjects fall in that range.
Subjects of force vs. officers using force
TYPES OF FORCE
REASONS FOR FORCE
Who was injured?
24.4% of subjects were injured.
Statewide, 21.3% of subjects were injured.
8.7% of officers were injured.
Statewide, 9.3% of officers were injured.
ALL REPORTS
We are not providing images of the 70,607 hard-copy forms to protect the privacy of subjects. Many forms contain personal information, including that of juveniles. Because the forms are not standardized across departments, in some cases the paperwork did not include the data points we were collecting. In other cases, those parts of the forms were illegible or left blank. These points will appear in the database as N/A or “blank.”